ATI and nVidia crush high-end DVD players

Introduction

Until recently the most important reasons for purchasing a certain graphics card was either image quality or speed in 3D games. Nowadays the PC finds its way to the lounge and is used more and more as a multimedia centre. Because of this change in usage the quality of playing movies and video files is becoming an important factor in choosing a graphics card to power your system. Both ATI and nVidia have invested a lot of time and money in developing their video technology, and both claim to be able to produce the best quality. We found this a perfect reason to compare not only ATI’s Avivo and nVidia’s PureVideo, but also 12 stand alone DVD players, varying in price between $ 200 and more than $ 2000. We try to answer the question which is best for your new LCD television, a top of the range DVD player or a PC?